


it's late and this song is for you

by sk4di



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Previously posted on ff.net, aubrey is so in love, famous au, filmmaker!chloe, probably my favorite thing I've ever written, producer!beca, revisited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sk4di/pseuds/sk4di
Summary: "There's Chloe written all over this one." (Or the AU in which Aubrey is a songwriter and in love that no one asked for.)
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Aubrey Posen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	1. question

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello hello
> 
> this is probably my favorite thing I've ever written. everything about it makes my heart smile.
> 
> again, it's revisited.
> 
> the next time I come here is with the new version of See You Soon. so, see you soon!
> 
> have the loveliest of the sundays.  
> \- sk4di

The media is talking about her. They say she is in Paris today. You don't know why, you don't read why, you just scroll past that headline. She'll tell you later, and it's better that way.

You'll wait for her to call.

You'll answer on the third ring. (On the first you seem too eager, on the second it seems planned, the third is okay.) She'll greet you and you’ll wonder if she knows that, instantly, your head comes up with seven different words to describe her voice. For the rest of the call, you pay attention, though.

You do pay attention to the way she pauses before saying goodnight. You want that pause filled, but you know you are being patient. This time, you must.

You're five hours behind her. And you think it's funny that there's a measure for that. You are never behind anyone. But you think it's okay. You feel like you're following her around, anyway.

You hate that the bed she'll sleep tonight is in another country, across the sea. You hate the invisible strings tying you to this fourth floor in Tribeca. You sometimes amuse yourself with the image of yourself picking up a scissor and cutting them, one by one.

The nights ends, with you writing another sad song that you won't give to anyone.

* * *

When Beca comes to your place in the morning, she's amazed with what you have for her. She makes you play three times the song you wrote a few weeks ago, when Chloe was asleep on the right side of your bed and New York's sky was crying all over the city.

"This is different," she tells you as the last note pours from your piano. "This is almost happy."

Your roll your eyes and sighs. "Do you want it or not?"

"The hell I do. It's great." She gets up from the sofa and bends over the piano, reading your handwritten notes.

You are self-conscious about your calligraphy for about one second, then you remember Beca already saw those rushed cursive letters too many times to count. In that very room you wrote together two Billboard's #1.

She proceeds on making a few additions to the melody and you have no complains: you love how songs turn into gold in her hands. Your songs may be good, but Beca makes them great – she mas them a hit. That is why you are a team, that is why you made it to the top of the musical industry. From nerds reluctantly working together in a music club in college, to an A-list music producer and a songwriter.

"Let me tell you," she says, then pauses. "There's Chloe written all over this one."

You know that. You also can see her freckles on the dots of the i's and her laughing lines crossing the t's. Disgusting amounts of love between the squeezed letters.

"Yeah, use my pseudonym,” you say, sipping your tea.

"What? Why?" Beca is startled.

"I'm taking things slow," You say, eyes focused on your mug. "She can't know I wrote that."

"Oh," Beca says and you know she understands.

She was there to see you failing your love life too many times after you scared them away with the words other people sing for you, all this while becoming one of the most requested names to work with in the industry. She didn’t led a much different life.

"Is she in NY?" She asks, tapping rhythmically a beat tab by your table.

"Paris."

"For?"

"Some shooting for Prada, or Gucci. I don't remember."

"I didn't know she was doing photography for fashion ads now," Beca said, thoughtfully. "I thought about ringing her about a music video for Evermoist."

You shrug. This is how you met her and only now you realize it was eight months ago.

Eight months of texts and sneaking out of after parties and ending up in hotel bedrooms. Eight months of gradually writing less songs about partying, being horny, sad or lonely and more love songs.

You feel sick at the feeling of the possibility of falling into the love-heartbreak-forgetting cycle all over again. But you remember the way her hands always find yours and there's a tingle of hope that this time you are writing a song that is not meant to end.

"How is she? I don't know a lot about her. I know she is incredibly talented, though," Beca says.

You shrug again, pretending to not know a list of qualities about her. "She is kind."

"I like kindness." Beca grins at you and you try to not grin back like an idiot. That grin means the she knows that you are already biased.

"Let's put this one to sleep now." She suggests, later, when she is packing her things to leave. It's late afternoon and you think about how happy you'd be if Chloe called you. "I mean, I want your name on that one. We can wait."

You nod. "Sure."

"Don't forget our meeting with Emily tomorrow." Beca says, heading to the door.

"The new kid you discovered?"

"Yes." You try to not look annoyed. Beginners can be a handful. "I know she is really young but believe me, she's good, I promise she will behave. And you know I wouldn't give my best songwriter to anyone. She's promising."

You grin at the compliment. "Okay, I believe you."

She kisses your cheek as a goodbye and you let yourself gravitate back towards your music room. You wonder how Chloe would feel listening to a song written about her.

* * *

The rest of week seems to last a month, but in the end, she kisses you passionately the moment you close your apartment's door behind her.

You missed her. The red waves of her hair and her purple scarf. Her coconut shampoo and the tingle sensation of your skin burning under her hands. The taste of her lips and the way she angles her neck to kiss you.

"Did you bring me macaroons?" You ask, playfully, still holding her by the waist while she hangs to you, tightening her arms around your neck.

"I did." She smiles at you. "Is it all you want?"

You smile back at her. You want her to never leave again, fuck those macaroons. "There's a few other things I want, to be honest."

Chloe kisses you again, this time, softly. When she kisses you like that, in that lazy and sloppy way reserved for lovers, you can’t stop thinking she may love you already, too.

You hold her closer and there's a nostalgic melody around your place. She makes the most beautiful songs to born in your mind.

You hold her a little tighter than usual after she falls asleep.

* * *

You know you are in love. You don't have to ask yourself twice. You've been there before.

You won't say it never felt so right. It did, before, too.

With Chloe, though, you pray that you will never have to feel right about anyone else ever again.

* * *

It's three months later until she turns to you and says that you are her best friend.

The night is clear, and you are sitting under the moonlight on your balcony. You've never saw the color blue that her eyes are showing. It’s like a pair of new stars shining just for you.

You caress her cheek with your thumb and bring her closer until your lips meet. You promise yourself that she deserves more than that. She deserves words.

* * *

Your first fight is because you can't agree on posting a picture on Instagram. It's so silly and you both know that.

But it's more than that.

(And you both also know that.)

"Do you even want to be with me, at all?" Chloe asks and the hurt in her voice makes your bottom lip to tremble. "Or am I just the next number?"

"No." You answer, weakly.

"Then what is this, Aubrey?" She asks, and you wonder how you made a career out of putting words together when you can't bring yourself to give her the answer you have for months now.

This is the only thing I can't stand to lose. The reason why I write about love again. The beginning of something I won't grow tired of. The words echoes in your mind.

She leaves your apartment after you leave her question hanging, and you cry for the first time in months.

She forgives you, though. Because she loves you, it’s what she tells you when you show up at her door the next morning.

You lay on her bed and you spend the day curled up around her warm body, with music filling the place and your head against her shoulder. You don't talk a lot that day.

There's beautiful words she needs to hear, and you blame yourself for not being able to put them out right there, in her cozy bedroom, on the baby blue sheets and her dog laying by your feet.

You call Beca when you get home that night.

* * *

But in the end, words are your thing.

Emily's album is out and if feels a little bit like your baby. Because you worked on it with her and Beca, and also because there's one very special thing in it that is not yours, not Emily's, not Beca's. It's entirely Chloe's - as Beca said the day she first heard it.

_Track 5_. You text the redhead with the link to stream Emily's album.

_is this about me?_ She texts you back a few minutes after.

You smile down to your phone and texts her again, saying that yes, it is about her.

_oh my god I never had a song written about me before_

_I love it._ She texts, and you can feel her excitement.

You know that if she was there right now, you'd kiss her senselessly, because she'd be smiling, and her smile drives you crazy. But she is not, so you just stare at New York's skyline through your balcony and asks yourself:

How am I going to tell her that everything is about her?


	2. answer

However, you think she knows. The world knows.

Four years and several different voices sang your love for Chloe through different music genres. You even wrote a musical with a friend, and you swear that the title of the love song before the end of the first act sounds a lot like her name when you say it out loud, even if the world can't notice.

And there's also the songs that literally have her name on it.

("Eh, we're changing that," Beca says. "You're so fucking smitten, it's so embarrassing."

She is also smitten with Chloe - in a different way, but smitten.)

You really wish, sometimes, that you could eternalize one of them with your own voice, though. You don't admit, but you have dreams about singing to her in front of a crowd. But they vanish as soon as she finds you at your music room, and you sing to her something new, and your entire world is between those four walls – there’s even a picture with Beca on the wall.

The rest of the world doesn’t need to see the way her eyes fill with tears or that shy smile you give her when you are finished. She is the only crowd you need.

Somewhere between the years the media found you. Chloe deals with it a lot better. She holds your hand and well, you can live with that, you think.

Paparazzi found you once or twice. None of you are really a hot target unless you are with Emily or Beca. So she just held your hand, smiled and asked them how their night was, as you passed by. (This dirty industry doesn't deserve her, you think.) You barely get annoyed as you see the pictures on the internet, later.

She's in your speech after you win that award destined for songwriters that you always thought was too ahead of you and your talent. (Thank you for holding my hand and my heart every single day, you said before thanking Beca and your parents.) She cried a little and you went out to celebrate with Beca and Amy, whose show – Fat Amy Winehouse - you watched a few months ago in Vegas.

Your father calls you the day after that. He says he's proud and you cry with joy. Chloe is there to see your tears, she wipes them with her thumbs, kissing one eyelid, then the other, then one cheek, then the other, then the corner of your mouth, and then your lips.) Of course, he never pictured out a future as a songwriter for you. You were supposed to be a lawyer, or a doctor. So, him being proud of you in the career you choose and that you excel at is more than you've ever expected from him. It means you've worked like a Posen.

He knows Chloe, of course. You've been home with her for Easter for the past two years. You are suspicious that he already settled on the idea that she is the one for you.

(You are suspicious that _you_ are settled on that idea, too.)

He tells you to no forget about your mother's birthday in a few weeks, before ending the call, and Chloe and you plan to go shopping for a gift on Saturday. All is well.

* * *

Beca decides to drop an album at some point. You know she'll do great. The public already loves her for the collaborations she has with other artists. You think there's something to do with her bad girl look, too.

(They don't know that she cried with the birthday post Chloe made for her, though.

 _Thanks, red. Love you too_. She commented on Instagram, but in real life it took her fifteen minutes to put herself back together.)

"We could do it together. Me, you and a stage," she says, one day.

"No way. Do you remember when I tried singing in public in college? Disaster," you say, pouring her a cup of coffee.

"I do remember that," she says, sitting on your counter and ignoring your disapproval look. "That was disgusting, I still remember the smell." She sips her coffee. "You could just play the piano, though. No need to sing."

You hum, thoughtful. Years ago, you wouldn't even consider it. But now, it doesn't sound _that_ bad. Chloe changed so many things, and one of them is your relationship with the public eye. You feel like you are being honest with your art, you feel like you found the balance between your personal life and the words you put out there. You are far from being fearless, but you found the mid-term.

A tour? Well, it's an option.

First of all, Beca will be there. Second, it would be a nice change. You love your job, but you admit it would be nice – for once - to go through the entire thing with a song, not only put the scratch together and send it to someone else. Third, it sounds like a story you'd love to tell the kids Chloe says you are going to raise together. And last, you'd love to have the autonomy of writing a full album.

"I know it's a huge thing, we're used to staying behind the scene. But don't you think we could do it?" Beca says in a tone that is almost sentimental. "We are getting older and soon we'll not have the same disposition anymore."

"Are you going to cry? Chloe is not here to hug you and I'm not going to do it."

"Fuck you, I'm trying to have feelings."

"Okay, I'm sorry," you say, biting back a smirk.

"If you say yes, we start tomorrow," Beca says and you know she is serious.

Alright, you think, but what you say is different. "Let's take things slow and see what happens."

"Dude, why can't you just say yes?" Beca says and snaps you out of your thoughts.

"She is saying yes to what? That's rare." Chloe enters the kitchen.

She kisses Beca's cheek, then your lips and you notice she just came home from a jog. Her skin is glowing lightly with sweat and she looks too sexy to be real in her work out clothes.

"I know, her first word was no," Beca says and Chloe laughs, uncapping a bottle of water.

"That's not true," You say, annoyed.

"Yes, it is. Your mom told me," you friend says and turns back to Chloe. "Your girl is going on tour with me."

"What? No way! This is great!" Chloe says, excitedly, looking back and forth between Beca and you. "I've been telling her for _years_ that I love her singing voice."

"Hey, spare me you pillowtalks. I'm disgusted," Beca says and Chloe just laughs.

(They're idiots together. They didn't even to try to be friends, they just sparked.)

"So, she's not going to sing but she'll play the piano."

"I haven't said yes yet, you know that, right?" You finally speak.

"You will," Beca says, confidently.

You pretend to not see the wink she shared with Chloe.

* * *

Eventually, you say yes, on the day before the album is pratically done.

"Why are you saying it now?" Beca asks you. "You didn't really think we were going to give this to someone else, right? Dude, we're married, and this is our son. We don't go around giving our children."

"It's literally what we did all of our careers."

"No. We never did this _._ " She pushes play in one of the first songs you wrote for the album – Chloe's favorite. And you see her point.

You totally see it.

* * *

You spend one evening planning the tour.

It's meant to be small, almost private. Small places and limited crowds. Beca points out a small theatre off-Broadway for the first show. You are okay with it.

It will be Beca, you and your piano, a drummer, a guitarist and a bass player. Small stages, moody lightning. You love it.

The rest of the tour dates are yet to be planned by the people from the label that take care of that, but Beca having a fair share of its actions, she gets to have an opinion. It will last four months. It's enough, you say to each other.

"I want to feel like I'm playing for her every single time," you tell Beca.

She has her body leaning over the balcony and a cigarette in her hand. (You only need your two hands to count how many times you saw her smoking.) She gives it a smoke and somehow, you feel it in your own body. Her eyes are focused on the skyline and she turns to you after another smoke.

"Bring her with us."

You frown from the chair you're sitting with Chloe's dog on your lap.

It's not a bad idea.

* * *

Chloe goes crazy with the idea. She wants to make a short film out of it. Beca thinks it's brilliant.

"It's a little bit too nostalgic. It's like someone is going to die, like we are never going to see each other again," you say one night, over dinner, in an attempt of taking her out of this. "We all know when this is over, Beca will back in this very sofa, I'll be writing songs, she'll be trying to make music out of forks, or bottles, or anything. I'll try to stop her until she convinces me it's a good idea. And it will be. We'll work over this for a week or so, and then we'll give the song to someone else. Life will be normal again."

"This was awfully specific." Chloe frowns and kisses your pout away. "But you proved my point. Don't you think I can make something beautiful out of the year in which you guys decided to make something different? The year you are not spending on this couch."

You look at her. You really look at her. You see her beautiful face and the sauce stain on the corner of her mouth.

But you see past that, too.

You see how your place it's now hers and her dog's, too. You see the few framed pictures she took in a wall that was empty until a few months ago and the vintage camera she uses for fun resting by a side table. You see her coat (deep purple) hanging beside yours (plain black). You see the plants she is watering in your balcony.

"I think you can make beautiful things out of anything," you tell her, believing in your words like never before.

* * *

Less than half a year later, the album is out, and the critics are unbelievable kind.

"If you think this is not a debut album, you are wrong. Mitchell and Posen are on the road for years, yes. But only now, I dare to say, we know who they truly are as artists. Spoiler: they are better than you think," someone important says in a famous music magazine, making Beca beam.

Well, the mainstream success was, in a lack of a better word, unexpected. This was supposed to be a really small thing, for the public that cares about music under the radar and knows little about who sold more albums last year, but suddenly it became huge.

You watch as the numbers on your social media grow, and so do the news with your name on them. The lead single is on the iTunes top 100, around the fourth position. You and Beca debate over which interviews you are going to give - a few that the label recommended and another couple for journalists that you are friends with.

You want to cover Fleetwood Mac's _Don't Stop_ on BBC Radio One, because it sounds so much like the music you are doing, but Beca says that the best covers there are the ones in which the artists picks a song very different from what they usually do and make it sound like one of theirs. And she is right, you notice after she gives you examples. You end up making Gnarls Barkley's _Crazy_ sound like 70's rock. Chloe is the first to listen and she loves it.

The tour tickets sell well enough to make your label want to schedule dates on Europe. Beca says yes immediately. You hesitate until you remember Chloe will be with you the entire time. (Being in Rome and in love is probably a great experience.) You say yes and then you are adding two months touring Europe on you planner.

"I have so many places to show you there," Chloe says, curled up into your chest one morning. "I mean, this is a sabbatical year for me and it's kind of the same for you too. You are taking a break from being a songwriter to be a rockstar! Can you believe we are doing this, with each other?" She smiles at you and you feel your heart beat like a love song. "And Beca," she adds with a laugh.

"And Beca." You laugh back. "Well, there's no place I wouldn't go with you."

She kisses you, and as your hands find her hair and she moans into you mouth, you realize that Chloe is your favorite musical instrument to play.

You needed twelve years of piano classes and one week to learn your first ten chords on the guitar and one evening with an ukulele but, with Chloe, is like you were born with the ability.

* * *

The band works like a well-oiled machine. You are surprisingly comfortable sitting by your piano and with the audience's cheers. Beca has an energetic, yet very emotional performance for every song and you want to tell her that you are proud of her. You exchange looks during the evening and she knows. She talks to the crowd and they love her, you feel that electricity that only good concerts have.

Sometimes, when she's not in the middle of the crowd, you can see Chloe by the wings with her camera. She smiles at you and you smile back. Her laugh lines burn on your mind as you let the notes pour from your hands into the piano. It's all about for her, you remember.

"Aubrey is a crazy talented songwriter, I'm sure you know that," Beca says before every single performance of Chloe's favorite song. "One day, she fell for a girl and since then I couldn't really stop her from writing even more beautiful pieces. This song is very special for her and if it's important for her you can bet you ass it's for me too. This one, we play for Chloe. We love you, Chloe."

They always laugh, and you always look for Chloe. She is sick tired of hearing that, but she smiles every time.

You can't remember having so much fun as you have during the tour. You are always too tired to do anything after the concerts, but there's always a feeling of mission accomplished.

On your days off, the three of you walk around the cities and Chloe makes sure she has her camera with her. Your social media is flooded with pictures: there's a perfect shot of Beca that you took from where you sit, there's Chloe with her camera pointed at you, there's the band together and there's only the three of you looking tired on a backstage couch.

There's no way you are ever going to say it out loud, but you love Beca and her crazy idea of going on tour.

One night, nearing the end of the tour, you are spending the rest of the evening after the concert in a hotel in Madrid. Chloe shows you and Beca some of her shots and you can't wait to see it all edited. You feel like seeing this experience through her eyes will make you love it even more. Beca excuses herself to her room and Chloe sends her away with goodnight hug and a full bottle of water, ordering her to drink all of it before sleeping.

"You sound like her mom."

"She is kind of our daughter, anyway."

You roll your eyes and you pull Chloe to you by the hand.

In two weeks you be back home, and domestic life will be back. You miss your old routine so bad. You miss waking up in your own bed and making Chloe coffee. You even miss Chloe's dog that is living with her friend Cynthia Rose. You think that everything will be back to be the same as always and it's true. Although, you don't really want it to be.

"You know I love you, right?" You tell her, sitting on the edge of the bed and feeling her arms falling around your neck. You have to look up to see her face because she is standing, and you feel so small. You feel like she could just put you on her jean's back pocket.

"And I love you." She kisses the tip of your nose.

"Will you still love me when I'm not a rockstar anymore?" You fake a pout and she laughs.

"Well, I hadn't really thought about that, but now that you pointed out…" She trails off, laughing.

You laugh too, laying you lips against her collar bone and planting a kiss on it.

"It's all about you. Everything," you say almost in a whisper after a few minutes in silence.

You feel her hands running against your scalp and your skin and bones' are puddle in her hands. You look up to her and there's no doubt in your mind, there's no chance that all of it it's not worthy.

She leans down and kisses you repeatedly, dozens of pecks on your lips, between longer and deeper kisses and between childish ones on your cheeks.

"I know." Chloe kisses your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. "Thank you."

You smile at her and your cheeks hurt. Your heart aches with love and your hands bring her closer to you.

"Thank you," you say back, and she smiles.

There's no melody that compares to the way she makes you feel and that’s the only defeat you accept.

You kiss her again.

She knows, and you, finally, find your mind at peace.


End file.
